​Vatican cleric in fresh money laundering charges

This handout picture taken from a video released by the Guardia di Finanzia Italian police on June 28, 2013 shows Nunzio Scarano (front-L) escorted by policemen after being arrested the same day in Rome. (AFP/GUARDIA DI FINANZA)

A former Vatican accountant Monsignor Nunzio Scarano has been newly charged with money laundering through the Vatican bank. He is already on trial for allegedly conspiring to smuggle $26 million from Switzerland into Italy in 2013.

It's alleged the multi-million dollar money laundering involved
fictitious donations from offshore companies processed through
his accounts at the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR), which
is better known as the Vatican Bank. The Italian Financial police
told AP that millions of dollars have already been seized, and
other arrest warrants are expected to shed light on the scale of
the scam.

The police haven't specified exactly how much money went through
the IOR laundering scheme, but Scarano had about $7 million at
his disposal in accounts at the Vatican and Italian banks.

Scarano's lawyer Silverio Sica, explained his client was merely
receiving donations from people in good faith wanting to help
build a hospice.

“We continue to strongly maintain the good faith of Don
Nunzio Scarano and his absolute certainty that the money came
from legitimate donations,” Sica told The Associated Press.

However, his lawyer confessed that the money was used to cover a
mortgage.

Scarano, aged 61, is now under house arrest in his native
Salerno, near Naples. The smuggling investigation was already
underway when the former Vatican accountant, nicknamed
“Monsignor 500” for his propensity to pay with 500 euro
banknotes, was arrested in June 2013.

The conspiracy with Italian financier Giovanni Carenzio and a
member of the military police Giovanni Zito, came to light after
phone taps. The three allegedly planned to bring into Italy $26
million (20 million euro) that Carenzio held in a Swiss bank
account on a private jet, without paying customs duty at the
airport.

The arrest of Scarano was followed by his dismissal as an
accountant in the Vatican’s main financial office and his
accounts at the Vatican Bank were frozen by the authorities

In order to restore the trustworthiness and transparency of the
Vatican Bank, Pope Francis formed
an independent commission of inquiry to examine the activities of
the bank and its legal status last year.